LeseLust & LeseLiebe

This week's Timeslip Tuesday book is an older English one-- The Wind Eye , by Robert Westall (upper MG/YA 1976, still in print).  Westall's work ranges from picture books to adult, often exploring how the past hits the present in dark and mysterious ways.  Which is what happens in The Wind Eye.... It begins when a family, comprising a mother and her teenaged son married to a father with two daughters (one a young teen and one a little girl), setting off to the northeast coast of England to stay in the old house the father has just inherited.  They are not a happy family.  The kids get along fine, but the parents are not getting on well at all. And then the past and the present collide.   St. Cuthbert still is a real person to the people of this part of the Northumberland coast, and he becomes so to the kids as well when they find a boat that travels back to his time, taking them out to the island that was his retreat from the world.   Along the way, there's...

Here are the posts about mg fantasy and sci fi that I gleaned in my blog reading this week!  Please let me know if I missed yours. The Reviews Agent Weasel and the Abominable Dr Snow, by Nick East, at Library Girl and Book Boy Agent Weasel and the Fiendish Fox Gang, at Twirling Book Princess The Bootlace Magician, by Cassie Beasley, at Sloth Reads The Haunting, by Lindsey Duga, at Not Acting My Age and Cracking the Cover The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day, by Christopher Edge, at Charlotte's Library Nevertell, by Katherie Orton, at Booktrailers for Kids and YA Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, by Carlos Hernandez, at Sonderbooks Serafina and the Seven Stars, by Robert Beatty, at Good Reads With Rona A Sprinkle of Sorcery, by Michelle Harrison, at Book Craic The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady, by Gerald Morris, at Leaf's Reviews Urchin of the Riding Stars (The Mistmantle Chronicles, Book 1) by M.I. McAllister, at Semicolon Wild and Chance, by Allan Zadoff, at Ms. Yingling Reads...

In my worldview, pizza and beer go together just like peanut butter and jelly. When my friends and I would dig into a meaty concoction filled with sausage and pepperoni, our favorite brews always accompanied the choice. This pairing wasn’t about flavor or the palette; pizza and beer were simply a known pairing. When I went on a trip to Napa Valley to do some research for my book Windstorm , which has winery themes, I was surprised to find dozens of pizza places within Napa Valley, all of which served wine with their pies. While I’d never heard of such a thing, I quickly discovered that Napa Valley does not have ordinary pizza…and they certainly don’t have ordinary wine. Skewered shrimp and tomato pizza? This pairs well with the Sauvignon Blanc from a specific winery. Spinach and artichoke pizza with grilled mushrooms? Try a sweeter wine such as Riesling. Duck pizza braised with barbeque sauce? Try a Merlot. For every type of pizza, there was a wine to accommodate. And what I learned as...

I'm still holding on to the middle grade sci fi/fantasy books of 2019, with a slightly over the top grim determination to read all the ones at hand before the end of January...(fortunately January 2020 is not a huge mg sci fi/fantasy release month, so I'm sure I can catch up on this year's in just a few days of reading!). The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day , by Christopher Edge, is an English import that came out here in the US back in April 2019 (Delecorte), and in 2018 in the UK.  It's a story of sisters caught in an altered reality, with time and space gone wonky, with birthday balloons and tasty food meeting a horror of chaos and despair. It's Maisie's tenth birthday, and her parents are making a huge effort to give her a great party.  The greatness of the party is supposed to make up for the fact that none of her friends are coming.  Maisie in fact has none at all.  She's a home-schooled science and math prodigy, who's never had a chance to socialize ...

Here's what I found this week; please let me know of anything I missed! The Reviews Alien Superstar, by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver, at Good Reads with Rona Boy Band of the Apocalypse, by Tom Nicholl, at Always in the Middle Cog, by Greg van Eekhout, at Sonderbooks The Dark Lord Clementine, by Sarah Jean Horwitz, at Geo Librarian A Dash of Trouble (Sprinkle of Spirits #1), by Anna Meriano, at Leaf's Reviews The Girl who Stole and Elephant, by Nizrana Farook, at Lily and the Fae (I haven't read this myself yet, so not sure it counts as fantasy....) The Girl with the Dragon Heart, by Stephanie Burgis, at Book Criac Lampie and the Children of the Sea, by Annet Schaap, at Whispering Stories The Mystwick School of Musicraft, by Jessica Khoury, at Sharon the Librarian Race to the Sun, by Rebecca Roanhoures, at Ms. Yingling Reads , Book Page , and Bookshelf Fantasies The Red Winter (The Tapestry #5), by Henry H. Neff, at Say What? The Revenge of Magic, by James Riley, at Imagi...

I am still stubbornly refusing to say good-bye to the middle grade sci-fi/fantasy books of 2019.  Though I did read around 200 of them, when I went through the Goodreads list of 2019 MG fiction, I found some that I had overlooked.   If I'd started focusing on 2020 back when it started, I don't know when I'd have gotten around to reading those books, and I'm very glad to have read them, so here I am. I'm really surprised that The Twelve , by Cindy Lin (HarperCollins, July 2019), didn't get more buzz (or at least, more buzz that trickled down to me).  This is a debut East Asian zodiac fantasy that is a really fun adventure, with tons of kid appeal and fascinating magical powers! Usagi's island home was supposed to be kept safe from invasion by the powers of the 12 zodiac warriors, trained in the use of the magical gifts of their signs on Jade Mountain, home to not just the warriors and their heirs, but to 12 wonderfully magical treasures.  But the Dragon warri...

When Abe Freeman left New Jersey and his Jewish roots for the enchanted land of New Mexico, he discovered that new adventures can be more than romance and danger. There are also those of the culinary kind. Leaving his matzo balls behind, he had his first food encounter in a small town diner just west of the Texas border. When the waitress asked him if he wanted "red" or "green" on his enchiladas Abe, puzzled, settled for what she called "Christmas", a serving of both red and green chile served atop two cheese enchiladas and accompanied with a generous serving of refried beans and rice. That was only the beginning. His introduction to Navajo Police Officer, Emily Etcitty led him to try such delicacies as mutton stew, fry bread, Navajo tacos, and, reluctantly, blood sausage. Although their relationship started off rocky, the food adventures continued to grow. On special occasions such as ceremonies, kneel-down bread, made of mashed corn and baked underground...